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My Socialism is showing!

At the end of the day, I am an anarchist. I believe any law is a bad law, and any government is too much government. I am not so foolish as to believe such an ideal state could exist in today’s world, but none the less it is the ideal I believe I should strive for. As I see it, only one law is really necessary:

Do what you will, so long as it harms none.

One would imagine such a political philosophy would set me down somewhere on the Right, but on a recent trip to The Political Compass I ended up on the Libertarian left. A bit right of Gandhi, but still firmly planted on the left. I found some of the questions hard to answer from my point of view. *Are the rich taxed too highly?* is an example. One the one hand, no one should be taxed, but on the other, if there is going to be a tax, then the rich should pay their share (which they don’t). I found myself in that quandary a few times, and picked the *well, I don’t like it but that’s the way it is right now* answer.

My attitudes about economics, though, are what pulled me left. While I willingly advocate the idea of it, human kind is not yet ready to assume the responsibility for a laissez faire economy. Allowing what are basically economic warlords to rape and pillage the countryside is probably bad, it is not conducive to a free market, and leads to untold misery. We shouldn’t need to tell people its bad, but we do, obviously. I advocate a light hand by society on business, but a hand none the less. At least until we attain the moral fiber to know when our own accumulations are hurting others. I have long said a formal definition of avarice should do fine, but it still needs to happen.

Perhaps the real answer is simply to disengage the entire system. Systems such as Uber, Bitcoin and the use of local currency, as is used in Ithaca, NY, are steps in this direction. Each time we strengthen the local community, we take a step towards regaining our freedom. Creating local markets, like farmer’s markets, that encourage local businesses to produce the products, decreasing reliance on corporate mediocrity. (That is all corporations have really given us. Our “furniture” is made of cardboard, trash. In the rush for profit, a corporation will do whatever is cheaper, faster, and inevitably of less quality.)

With localization comes control. it is far easier for a town to engage the avarice of a few of its citizens, to make meaningful change, than it is to hope to create meaningful change in a country of 300 million people.